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Hi. Just won my first game against an rated player(1712) and got my first rating of 1500. Is this correct? Thought it should have been 1712+400=2112p instead.
Sorry if this was asked many times before, but I didn't see an FAQ section here.
cheers
Thomas A.
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See the third post before yours. 
Although that first game limited you somewhat, it didn't take you long to move higher by playing
opponents within the 400 range, rather than much higher as some others have done.
The "About This Site" link has details about the scoring although it does not mention the first game situation.
Your first games are an excellent example of how one would ideally reach their rating.
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The information you need is to be found under Help and About This Site. I took the liberty to copy/paste the relevant section:
Provisional Ratings
During the first 25 games played by a player, we are trying to determine the relative playing strength. It is important to note that provisional ratings usually fluctuate greatly and also that a win does not guarantee that the rating will go up, while a loss does not guarantee the rating will go down.
The rating for a provisional player is calculated as the average of the provisional ratings obtained on each of the individual games. The provisional rating for a player in an individual game is calculated as follows:
* If both players are unrated, the winner gets 1500 points and the loser 1100. If the game ended in a draw then both players get 1300 points.
* The rating for the winning player is the opponent's rating plus 400 points, or 1500 points if the opponent is unrated (unless the special rule below applies).
* The rating for the losing player is the opponent's rating minus 400 points, or 1100 points if the opponent is unrated (unless the special rule below applies).
* If the game ended in a draw, then the player gets the opponent's rating, or 1300 points if the opponent is unrated.
* Special rule: if the opponent is rated 400 or more points below or 400 or more points above, then the rating will not be affected no matter the outcome.
That being posted: Welcome to QA, and good job getting your first win in only three days. It takes a little effort to get an established rating, but by then - who knows - it might be near enough to what you had hoped.
Cheers, F.
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| * The rating for the winning player is the opponent's rating plus 400 points, or 1500 points if the opponent is unrated (unless the special rule below applies). |
This is what the documentation says but it is not what happened. The `if the opponent is unrated' clause should not have been invoked, because Thomas's opponent was not unrated -- he had a rating of 1712. As Thomas says, his rating should now be 2112p.
It is completely wrong to assign a fixed rating of 1500 to a player who wins their first game. Not only does it completely ignore the strength of the opponent but, also, it assumes that a new player who wins his first game is a worse player than 85% of the people on the site. What possible basis can there be for that assumption?
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I agree with richerby. This rule might prevent some players from getting high provisional ratings they could accidently when they manage to achieve a remis or win against a strong player in the first game. But those players will either come down during the next matches or they have to prevent their rating carfully by a very special oponent selection. Whoever need this ... The Bergman-Problem (first game is a non-loss againt him) might be gone at the moment (he didn't offer rated matches), but even if not, I don't think that this one player should dominate the whole community. If Bergman want to starts offering rated matches again, why not looking for another solution like a maximal rating after the first game that cannot exceed some like the average of the best xx% of all players. or something else.
At the moment the problem is simply shifted to an invisible area where almost all players are affected: I'm a strong player and my way to my final rating, now, after starting with 1500, will simply cost all of my opponents many point now.
I'm not very experienced in rating systems, but to my oppinion the problem is, that the first game sets the important starting point and gets a special role for the entire rating history of one player. Why? I see no reason, why not every game, at least during the first 25 games, shouldn't be absolutly evenweighted. For rated players there should be some kind of rating protection when they play against provisional players, because they might have a much too high or low rating at the point in time when the meet together. Re-calculating the rating after the provisional players get their settled rating might be a good solution, if this is to complex to implement, then a cut-off by i.e. 50% of any win or loose against a provisional player might cover the most of the inaccuracy.
But finally my oppinion is that, we should play chess here for fun and not for ratings, but it seems to be a matter of fact, that human needs goals in life and the ratings are the target here.
cu
taa
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Thomas, the rating system already does what you are saying about protecting rated players when they lose to provisional players.
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